1. Technical Field
The disclosure relates generally to a system and method for describing and locating web services, and more particularly, to a system and method for describing and locating web services using synthetic Web Services Description Language (WSDL) ports for automatic proxy mediation via configuration metadata.
2. Background Art
WSDL is an interface description language, defining the syntax and protocols used for network communications. WSDL follows a hierarchical structure, with data definitions, message types, operations, ports, and services; each one building on the one before, respectively. As used herein, a port defines a set of messages and binds them to a particular transport and data syntax.
While WSDL tries to promote re-use within its different elements by using naming conventions, etc., there are still issues with verbosity and repetition when using WSDL. In particular, there is no way to determine whether a network entity can provide the same operations over multiple protocols and syntaxes. As a well-known example of this, the Internet Domain Name System (DNS) protocol is available over both User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP).
Furthermore, unforeseen extension of service offering can be difficult in many common cases, even where all that is desired is to provide the same pre-existing operations over additional protocols. For example, a given company might have originally implemented an industry standard WSDL that implements a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) 1.1 binding based on the technology at the time. Then, with increased adoption of SOAP 1.2 in network communications, the company likely desires to make their system available to SOAP 1.2 clients as well. In the related art, to implement SOAP 1.2, the company would have to define a new WSDL file which adds SOAP 1.2 support and that includes the previous WSDL, and then add code into the company server to actually support the new binding. As understood, this coding can be quite time-consuming and expensive.
The illustrative aspects of the present disclosure are designed to solve the problems herein described and/or other problems not discussed.